160M: CQ WW Bust and Busted

From Page 6-8 of the ARRL ON4UN LOwband DX-ing Book

Today I will nail the new LC circuit for the Inverted L. There are 14 combinations that I can try, so it could take a couple hours to finalize the LC circuit, wire up the u.RAT and button it all up. The ones that have one L and one C in the diagram above will be tested as will some other circuits, such s series LC with different order of components, and I will even try a few with a third fixed component since I do not want to add another stepper motor or some switching network (which would be easy, but I’m lazy).

There were 6 entities spotted during the CQ WW on Top Band that I needed but all I worked was V21B, and I am at the mercy of having my KW6R busted call fixed – unless they got it right when they faded in the QSB – which is very possible. Right now I’m up in the middle of the night and daylight is just starting to hit the Caribbean, so unfortunately, the crummy conditions this weekend on 160M just didn’t cut the mustard for me.

Lets hope that the CW portion of this contest bears more fruit – it would have been amazing to have gotten to 94 in just one weekend – but it at least shows that I need enough in the Caribbean, South and Central America to get to DXCC – so it should be easier than this.

The best news is even being heard and hearing V26B. I beat several much bigger guns with better QTH’s and antennas, and my RX situation is better than average. Hey – so is my TX antenna, although an Inverted L isn’t the most impressive antenna, but it does the trick.